Blogs

The San Francisco Chronicle launched a book blog this week, Bookmarks . To welcome Bookmarks to the literary blogosphere, we emailed books editor John McMurtrie, who told us all about the blog -- or blogue, or blague, depending. JC: Did the Chronicle blog about books before? JM: No, there were no previous book blogs. But I'd like to think someone in the 19th century was compiling a blogue. The word blog, for me, still calls to mind “ blague ,” meaning joke in French.

This website eliminates foreign-language barriers so you can find travel inspiration even at the hyper-local level. Name: WebFlakes.com What it does: Translates into English fresh, quality content from locals blogging in their native languages. There are currently 60 bloggers in France, Italy, Japan, Argentina, Switzerland and Peru writing on topics such as travel, food and dining, wine, architecture and design. What's hot: I wouldn't have known the posts were translated (by volunteers)

The gig: Emily Schuman, 30, is the lifestyle maven behind the popular blog Cupcakes and Cashmere, a confectionary collection of stylish outfits, recipes, home decor tips and do-it-yourself projects. Think Martha Stewart meets Carrie Bradshaw. The blog also led to a book deal for the California native. Titled "Cupcakes and Cashmere: A Guide to Defining Your Style, Reinventing Your Space, and Entertaining With Ease," it hit shelves last August and landed on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list.

When Google went public in 2004 for $85 a share, I wrote a column questioning such a high valuation for a company built on a math equation. Wasn't it inevitable that someone would come along with a better search algorithm? Google closed Monday at $908.53 a share. So take what I'm about to say with a pinch of cyber-salt. Yahoo is paying $1.1 billion for the blogging service Tumblr, which enjoys a loyal following among millions of young, cool, edgy and influential users, but little, if any, profit.

SAN FRANCISCO - To punctuate his company's $1.1-billion purchase by Yahoo Inc., Tumblr co-founder and Chief Executive David Karp let loose in a blog post with a celebratory expletive. It was classic Karp, a 26-year-old high school dropout who built one of the Web's most popular outlets for personal expression. It was also a clever way to send a message to Tumblr users: It may have been bought out - earning Karp about $275 million - but Tumblr was going to stay irreverent.

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Marissa Mayer is attempting a bold - and risky - strategy to turn around the struggling Internet giant with the $1.1-billion acquisition of Tumblr, a trendy social blogging service popular with teens and young adults. Though Yahoo still has a massive online audience, it's losing its grip on young people and how they consume the Internet on mobile devices. Tumblr, a 6-year-old company with 100 million users who share links, photos and blog posts, represents the new guard of the Internet.

Many Tumblr users are already up in arms over worries that their beloved blogging service could lose its hip edge under Yahoo's control. The blogging website was filled with rants after Yahoo announced on Monday it was acquiring Tumblr for $1.1 billion. An online petition to stop Yahoo from buying Tumblr had already been signed by nearly 169,000 people as of late Monday afternoon. “Yahoo is gonna ruin tumblr and Tumblr is the only reason why the world isn't in chaos rite now tumblr keeps people sane what if it shuts down.

Amanda Bynes had a nose job, she says, and that's why she keeps making a stink about mags and blogs using old pictures of her. "The reason I've asked all magazines and blogs to stop using old photos of me is I don't look like that anymore! I had a nose job to remove skin that was like a webbing in between my eyes," she said in an extended Twitter post Sunday. (The Ministry just paused a moment to poke around our own eyes and nose to try to figure out how "webbing" might manifest in that part of the face.

China employs an army of censors. As many as 50,000 well-trained monitors police the Internet, and 12 government departments are empowered to search and seize information and shut down users and sites. They work fast: A recent study conducted by two American computer scientists found that 30% of banned posts are removed within half an hour of posting, and 90% within 24 hours. International corporations must abide by the censors or forgo doing business in China. Paramount Pictures, for example, agreed in April to cut scenes from a new Brad Pitt movie to remove an unflattering reference to China.

Former Lakers center and champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar opened up in his blog at HuffingtonPost.com , sharing a number of personal regrets. In an entry entitled, "10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Turning Pro," Abdul-Jabbar compares dating as a youth to "Darth Vader approaching a bunny. " The logistics of dating were naturally complicated for Abdul-Jabbar at 7-foot-2. "I wish I'd been able to ignore the physical differences as I can now and just sit down, preferably on a shorter chair than them, and just talk to them about movies and books and history -- anything but basketball," he blogged.